Signing an association agreement with the European Union would deprive Ukraine of the opportunity to cooperate with the Russia-led economic bloc Customs Union, said the head of the Lower House Foreign Affairs Committee.

“This agreement is naturally contradicting the perspective of
Ukraine’s participation in the Customs Union because there are
paragraphs in the association agreement that practically rule out
the possibility for Ukraine to cooperate with the Customs Union
member countries,” Aleksey Pushkov said at the Friday session
of the Russian Lower House.

The Customs Union is a free trade organization started in 2010.
It currently Unites Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, but there are
plans to include more countries that once were parts of the
former Soviet Union.

Pushkov was presenting the draft resolution made in reply to the
European Parliament’s statement that had accused Russia of
applying pressure on a number of countries, including Ukraine,
over their plans to broaden cooperation with the European Union.

The Russian MP said the Ukraine-EU agreement would create a
single-sided dependence of Ukraine on the EU as Ukraine will not
be able to influence the development of EU directives, but would
nevertheless automatically accept them as obligations.

“No one offers Ukraine to become a EU member, it is an attempt
to tie this country to the European Union for a small price and
with little effort, to make this country into an economic
appendix. Ukraine is going to lose very seriously from these
agreements,” Pushkov explained.

“We are practically talking here about establishing a
semi-colonial dependence,” the parliamentarian emphasized.

A day earlier Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke at the
Valdai Club international political forum and said Moscow would
have to protect its markets in case Ukraine enters an association
agreement with the EU. The Russian leader also said that
Ukraine’s membership of the Customs Union would give Kiev better
leverage in its talks with Europe.

Earlier this week the Ukrainian government approved the draft
association agreement with the EU which is expected to be
formally signed at the EU Summit in Lithuania in November.